1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a showerhead or hand shower and to a method for selecting a spray type.
2. Description of the Background Art
Most showerheads or hand showers have showerhead plates or spray face plates with multiple spray types. To this end, two or more groups of different spray outlet openings that are supplied with water separately or together are customarily arranged in the spray face plates. Inflow to the spray outlet openings is regulated by means of valve devices.
An extremely wide variety of solutions for switching the water inflow from one spray type to another are known from the prior art. DE 10 2009 008 196 A1 discloses a hand shower with a changeover valve that has a valve closing body and a valve seat in the form of valve plates with ports. To activate a specific group of spray outlet openings, the valve closing body is rotated in opposition to the force of a compression spring by means of an actuating device using the principle of the ballpoint pen. In this design, each press of a pushbutton rotates the valve plate onward through a specific angle of rotation. Depending on the position of the valve plate, reaching a specific spray type necessitates switching through a different spray type and operating the pushbutton multiple times.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,905 discloses a showerhead with two spray patterns and a changeover device with two axially movable valve closing bodies that can be moved back and forth between a closed position and a flow position by means of a rocker switch. Depending on the position of the valve closing body, the access to a group of spray outlet openings is opened while the other access to the second flow pattern is simultaneously closed.
In addition, from US 2010/0237160 A1 is known a hand shower with multiple groups of spray outlet openings and multiple valves, wherein each valve is associated with a group of spray outlet openings. Each valve comprises an axially movable valve closing body that can be moved from a closed position to an open position by an actuation of a push-button, and back into the closed position by another actuation of the push-button. In this design, each individual valve can be controlled independently of the others. Depending on the valve position, however, all valves present in the hand shower may be in a closed position. For this reason, additional spray outlet openings are included that cannot be closed by the valves. This means that water is continuously dispensed from these spray outlet openings when water pressure is present. Consequently, these spray outlet openings are not controllable and function as a non-lockable spray.